Currently, mobile communication and computing devices are not as effective as larger computing systems in providing effective dynamic protection against the ever-changing and ever-pervasive malware scene, despite technology advancements in processor speed, memory size, and communications bandwidth. These limitations prevent timely identification of, and remediation against, software attacks in this mobile computing and communications platform.
Identification of viruses, spyware, bots, and other malware residing in memory and in storage on devices is often implemented by performing a comparison of a characteristic signature of the malware against a list of known malware. Scanning for the signature in an anti-virus scanning process, etc.) utilizes a large amount of processing time due to the complexities and large numbers of malware signatures present today. Further, and equally formidable, is the size of the data file containing those known signatures and the frequency of their update, such that downloading a large signature file (e.g. 30 MB in size, etc.) may present a perceptible and disruptive impact on the normal operation of the mobile device.
The update frequency of these updated signature data files, and the corresponding repeated downloading of them to the mobile devices in the field, presents a near-crippling impact on the functionality of the mobile device and a near-total consumption of network bandwidth to a wireless device. The net effect is that mobile computing and communications device users must either live with significant impact to their operation with these devices, or go without the latest and most recent signature of potentially devastating malware. Neither condition is acceptable in a business environment. There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.